A new Administrative Capital for the United Kingdom.

The present water shortage and the government plans to make it worse by building thousands of new homes in the South East calls for a new United Kingdom strategy.

The South East based on London is the administrative, financial, commercial, tourist and artistic capital of the United Kingdom and has to provide housing, commercial accommodation and services for all these activities. There is nothing Government can do about the latter activities (nor should it be allowed to) but it can do something about London and the South East being the administrative capital of the United Kingdom.

The problem of overcrowding and excessive demands for accommodation and services in London and the South East requires a radical decision that would move Whitehall, Parliament and the Royal Households to the provinces. London would remain the centre of the other activities. The parsimonious movement of a small amount of Government Offices and Agencies to the provinces is gesture politics and does nothing substantial to resolve the central problem.

What is required (and it is a fundamental and absolute requirement) is the wholesale removal of Central Government, its appendages and paraphernalia to a location (or locations) outside the South East. Such a relocation would at a stroke radically diminish the demand for property and services in London and the South East.

It is interesting that many countries (USA, Australia, Canada, Brazil and others) now have a commercial capital and an administrative capital and there is absolutely no reason why the United Kingdom should not follow their example.

Will it happen? I suspect not. Not until the problem has become even worse than it is at the moment and no doubt more expensive to solve.